Every Story is a Love Story
by nlduffy
Summary: Aida is a timeless story of politics, betrayal, and ultimately- love. What would have happened if instead of taking place in Ancient Egypt, Aida instead took place in the Firefly 'Verse?
1. 00 Every Story is a Love Story

((Author's note: This is a strange little idea that has been floating around in my head for the past three years. Each chapter was written while listening to a specific song from the Aida Broadway soundtrack. Each song is the title of the chapter it inspired. If you like, you can do that too! I've hit a bit of a writer's block with this, so hopefully posting what I have and getting feedback will help me figure out where to go next.))

Prologue-Every Story is a Love Story

The moon of New Cairo, circling the planet of Osiris, serves as the central headquarters for the Alliance sponsored shipping conglomerate Pharaoh Corporation. Terraforming almost didn't take, a stunning defeat for this satellite of a core planet. Most of New Cairo is desert, with one inhabitable city, Nubia, occupying a key position on the moon's only river. In fact, the entire moon used to be called Nubia, homage to a long forgotten country on Earth that Was. The river was named "The Nile," and only the few who remained that knew anything of Earth That Was understood.

The original inhabitants of Nubia turned it into an oasis on this desert planet, where culture thrived. When Pharaoh moved in after the war, the Nubians found all their natural resources cut off by the corporation. Survival was insured only by submitting to Pharaoh's "protection". This protection amounted to little more than slave labor in the shipping facilities on planet. But the Nubians had very little choice. The majority were forced to work for the company.

Some however, resisted. The former mayor of Nubia turned to diplomacy, and failing that, to space piracy in an attempt to sabotage the workings of Pharaoh. This is a story about Pharaoh and Nubia, yes. But this is also a story about love.


	2. 01 Fortune Favors the Brave

Chapter One- Fortune Favors the Brave

Security on the Pharaoh cargo ship _Cleopatra_ had just captured a small band of space pirates attempting to sabotage the airlock in the cargo bay. Three space-suited figures were thrown in front of Captain Radames. Not even two weeks into his command on the _Cleopatra_ and he was already getting targeted. Perhaps his youth had made the enemy think he was incompetent. Far from it. Radames had spent years on the Alliance frontlines, a claim few living men could make. Rising in rank from lowly infantryman to commander, he'd resigned six months ago to pursue a contract with Pharaoh Corporation. His security force stepped back a pace to allow the figures to struggle to their feet. "Had to stun one of them." The lead security on detail reported. Radames nodded.

"Excellent work. I shall add a bonus to your next month's pay." He turned to the figures. "Remove your helmets." He commanded. When they showed no signs of complying, he gestured to the guards who trained their weapons on the trio. As they removed their helmets, Radames was surprised to see that the three would-be saboteurs were all women. Nubians once had very traditional attitudes about women, and an all-woman strike team meant that they were getting desperate. That would be good intel for Zoser.

"Which one of you ladies is the leader?" After a moment's silence, a young woman stepped forward. She had a very sure step, and carried herself like royalty.

"I am the leader. You have no quarrel with my women. Let them go." Her voice was cool and cultured. She'd obviously been to school on Osiris, or another of the core planets. How unusual. Her tone told Radames that she was accustomed to giving orders, and having them followed.

Radames laughed. "I have quite a quarrel with them. See, they tried to blow a hole in my ship. And we can't let that go, now can we?" He motioned to the guards to have them shackled. "When we arrive back on New Cairo, you three will be sent to the shipping docks."

There was a blur of motion where the leader had been standing, and suddenly, she had wrestled a weapon away from the nearest security guard and had it pointed at him. "Release them." She said again, her voice still cool and reasonable. "Your quarrel is with me."

In a heartbeat, the other members of the security team had their weapons drawn and trained on the other women. "Admirable, Lady. But if you kill me, your women will die immediately, and you will soon follow." The seconds ticked by, and Radames wondered if this strange woman would kill him anyway.

She finally threw down the gun at his feet. "Pharaoh dog!" She spat, as she and the others were dragged off to the brig. Radames sighed and returned to his seat. "Mereb!" he called to his secretary, a young but enthusiastic Nubian boy that Radames had hand-picked for his talents. The young man was at his side in a moment, round eyes betraying the sympathy he still felt for his fellow citizens. "Wave the supervisor at the docks. Tell him we've got three new recruits for him."

Mereb coughed, a polite little thing that annoyed Radames. "Sir, might I suggest perhaps giving one of them to your fiancée? She has been complaining of the lack of good help…"

Radames nodded. His fiancée, the daughter of Pharaoh's president, had been rather disgusted with life in the family mansion on New Cairo. She was constantly looking for new bonded servants to oversee her affairs. "And she is always complaining that I forget her when I'm out on missions… good idea, Mereb. When we dock on New Cairo, take the leader to Amneris. Send her my regards, of course." He turned back to his nav-charts, and didn't see the sigh of relief slump Mereb's skinny shoulders.


	3. 02 The Past Is Now Another Land

Chapter Two- The Past Is Now Another Land

She had been so stupid! To allow herself and her women to be caught on a mission as routine as airlock sabotage, that was almost insulting. More to the point, she had failed Nubia. Her father had been right when he'd told her not to take another mission. She'd bungled it, and gotten two others captured with her. Unacceptable. She pushed her hair back from her face as she eyed the bonded servant coveralls a guard had dropped into her cell a few minutes before. Life at the docks could be rough, she knew. She'd seen the captures smuggled out of the workers' barracks, filthy shantytowns that were little more than prisons. Well, damned if she was going to wear these unless one of those soldiers forced her to! Angrily, she threw them across the room and slumped down on the bed.

How had this happened? She remembered the Nubia she grew up in, of the games she played and the utter safety she had felt. Swimming in the Nile, playing with the small harmless species of crocodile that strangely grew there…her life had been charmed. Her father had sent her to school on Osiris when the war started, in hopes that she'd enroll in one of the prestigious medical institutions and become a doctor like her mother had been. He'd seen the changing of the times long before anyone else had, and she was one of the few Nubian women allowed to continue her education past grade school. More would have followed her, she was sure, if the war had gone better for the Independents. In response, the Alliance plopped down a giant Alliance-sympathetic factory on the moon and immediately started practically enslaving her people. It had taken her six months to smuggle herself back to Nubia, and by then, a new war had started.

She'd thrown her energies into the space piracy the Nubians had turned to, enraged that something like this could have happened on the moon of a core planet, no less! She hated everything the Pharaoh Corporation stood for, as it choked the life out of the once thriving culture of Nubia, even to the point of forcing the people to stop speaking their local dialect of Mandarin. If this could be done here, imagine what could happen to the smaller colonies on the Rim? People had warned her, as she handpicked her strike team and trained them as best she could, warned her that they would get caught, and she'd be treated no better because she was a woman.

She'd laughed at them. And for two years, she'd proved them wrong. Her strike teams had become deadly effective, and her 4 teams of women were responsible for 50% of the damages caused to Pharaoh ships in the past year. Not that they'd ever learn that…she hoped. But her glory had come to an end, and soon she'd be no more than another dock slave under the whip of Pharaoh. Fate, she decided, was laughing at her.


	4. 03 Another Pyramid

Chapter Three - Another Pyramid

After ignoring the incoming wave as long as possible, Radames flicked the switch that opened the channel and found himself staring at Zoser. Zoser, plainly put, looked like a man sized rat in a uniform. He'd been with Pharaoh since the beginning, as Mrs. Egypt's personal secretary. He'd slowly fought, snitched, and blackmailed his way up through the ranks over the years. Now, with Mrs. Egypt's failing health, Zoser practically ran the place. Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Radames opened the audio channel. The man may be in charge, but that didn't mean he had to like him. "Ah, boy." Zoser oozed. "Glad you could join us." Radames fought back a shudder of revulsion. The fact that Zoser also happened to be his sort of surrogate father didn't make Radames respect him any more.

But back to more important matters. The wave had been marked urgent, and more worrisome, the man was smiling. That was never a good sign, Radames knew. "Just had a spot of trouble up here with some attempted sabotage, it's all sorted now."

"I'm glad you had _fun_ today, boy." He fairly spat. "But you need to be back on the surface as soon as possible. There was a squeak of leather as the older man leaned forward in his chair. "The time has come for our plan to be completed!" Radames fought back a puff of annoyance. Zoser had schemes that would doubtless outlive his current boss, and with his foster-son engaged to the only Egypt heir, he was guaranteed a place of power in the new regime. Radames wasn't going to deny him that. He didn't like the guy, but he owed him his career. Without Zoser, he'd still be in the whorehouse on the Rim his ma- mother had raised him in.

"The wedding is two months away, old man." Radames hissed. "Stop getting your panties in a bunch." He should lock Amneris and Zoser in a room together, and they could talk weddings until the Nile dried. Small blessing that it was only a month away now, he could almost relax again.

Zoser leaned forward, his rodent-like eyes shining. "Oh, but it looks like Madam Egypt hasn't got that long. The doctors at Horus say the outlook's not good. She's going to want her baby all safe and sound before she goes, of that you can be sure." Over the past few years, Mrs. Egypt had been slowly getting sicker, wasting away from some sort of disease even the doctors on Osiris couldn't figure out. Radames knew she'd been getting worse, but he didn't realize how quickly her condition was degrading.

"Amneris will want to move the wedding forward." He groaned. That would set off the Bridezilla in his fiancée like nothing else. He felt a bit of regret then, wondering what kind of person he was becoming. A woman was dying and all he could think of was how it would inconvenience him. Gorram, he was getting near as bad as Zoser.

"I'm pulling some of the Nubians from the shipping docks to build another pyramid." Zoser continued, referring to the Egypt family custom of adding a glass pyramid-shaped memorial near the temple in the center of the city. This new one would make the fourth, the other three belonging to Mr. Egypt and his parents. The passing of the Egypt matriarch would sadden many people, but the architects of New Cairo would have a field day.

"I'll be there as soon as I finish this run." Radames said, cutting through Zoser's excited chatter of off-moon expansion. He really didn't want to think about what this meant. As soon as it became clear Amneris had no interest in taking over her mother's position as CEO of Pharaoh, the board had been looking about for an appropriate successor. When he married into the Egypt family, Radames would make the ideal candidate. He fought back a sigh as he closed the frequency, cutting Zoser off mid-sentence.

He didn't mind being in power, he reveled in the authority he had over his men here on the ship. But CEO of Pharaoh would mean that his travelling days were at an end. No more disappearing for a few days to take a small ship out into the black, no more lazy afternoons in a yacht on the river. He supposed he'd miss that freedom. Nodding to the pilot, he sat back in his chair as the transport ship headed out to make its rendezvous.


End file.
